Not Waving But Drowning
by hinkypunked
Summary: Second person where 'you' is Remus and 'he' is Sirius. Writing style is very experimental so feedback would be amazing! Set sometime between leaving Hogwarts and James and Lily's death, so age 19/20-ish. 'Just drag me under and touch touch touch til I can feel nothing but the static of your fingers trailing across my skin. Til I am too full of you to know anything else.'


'This is the Moon. This is the Sun.  
Let me name the stars for you. Let me take you there.  
The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube...  
We were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want,  
so I said What do you want, sweetheart? and you said Kiss me.'

_-Richard Siken, Snow and Dirty Rain_

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always  
(Still the dead one lay moaning)  
I was much too far out all my life  
And not waving but drowning.

_-Stevie Smith, Not Waving But Drowning _

* * *

It's cold in your flat when his head appears in your fire place. You know he's drunk; you know because he is grinning wider than he has for what feels like a century but its a smile that twists your stomach up in dread. Must be another bad night, then. Another fray in the sleeve of your jumper and, tomorrow, another day at the Order running on caffeine and water splashed from a cracked sink. You run out into the cold without bothering to grab a cloak and apparate to him. You don't know where is but you just follow the thick, yearning feeling in your chest. You find yourself on the front step of the Black Manor and you search through the dark and musty halls until you find him on a bedroom floor, framed in the window, between heavy red velvet curtains. There are empty bottles and a stench that stings your nose, but beneath the acrid stench of alcohol there's the scent of dog and boy and home. When he turns to you he is all dark hair and pale skin and bruised eyes. There's something almost majestic in how terrible he looks; a mess that you can't help finding beautiful. You want to cry but you cant. It would ruin it, this balancing act you have; Giving giving giving to whichever of you needs it the most, even if the other has nothing to give. Laying it all out, offering up, until you're both bone tired but still alive still beating and breathing and crying and choking down day after day. He's there on the floor and you pick up the pieces of your boy strewn around like shattered china and you stitch him up best you can. A laugh here a joke there 'Haha what are you like it's ok it's alright it will all be fine', and the lies pour out of you from both ends lies lies lies like if you could just keep it up they'd become true and patch him up and make him ok. You keep laughing and breathing and lying until he touches you and says 'stop' and you do and you curl into the touch and shiver and pretend like you don't. Don't know. What this means. The touching touching wanting. You're thinking feeling 'Just drag me under and touch touch touch til I can feel nothing but the static of your fingers trailing across my skin. Til I am too full of you to know anything else. How can they hurt us in this dark room when you are all around me filling me my lungs my mouth and everywhere with warmth? Warmth and your solid presence and ragged breath. We are here and we are alive and nobody can touch us and maybe maybe I love you a bit. Maybe I just love the way you make me feel safer but I think there's something in your long limbs and dark hair and stupid laugh that makes me weak. It makes me crumble like biscuits and I adore it I adore you but I just want some bloody peace and quiet, and you and me in a room where there is no fear or guilt. Imagine that. The pureness of it. Where our friends aren't dying and your family doesn't hate you. Imagine. That's where we're going. I'll get you there I swear it.' And because you know you cant tell him these things you show him instead with your hands and mouth and tongue. 'I think I might love you.' There you go again. Lies lies lies. There's no maybe about it; you know you love him. Marauders, blood brothers, comrades, family. Even if you're not allowed to say it out loud, of course you love him. But not just that; you love him differently to the others. Like scalding white flames burn burn burning hot and cold at the same time, filling you up, filling your veins. You want to press yourself into every inch of him, leave no dark corner untouched, and even then it's not enough. He tears you open somehow, that boy. You wonder how you ever survived without him. Without this. That mouth of his was meant for quipping and smirking and grinning and kissing so when it starts crying you have to shove your lips against his to make it stop sto p. The moon knows how to make you howl but its nothing like Sirius Black writhing beneath you on the floor. He drinks up every last drop of you and you're just wish wishing that there was more. To feed him up. Make him strong. 'Here is my love and here are my skin and bones and they are all yours for the taking. Just take them.'

You were both dust once, and probably sooner rather than later you will be dust again. So you grip tightly and love fiercely into a thin mattress on the floor. If this is all you have you will make it be enough and you will be so, so grateful. You will love the veins in the back of his hands and the mole on his neck and his warmth of his mouth. You'll burn yourself up to make him whole and you'll smile all the while, because that's what he does for you. That's how the two of you work. That's how you survive. That's how you keep all the darkness out.


End file.
